Alkiviadis Diamandi or Alcibiade Diamandis (sometimes spelled Diamandis, Diamanthis or Diamantis) was an Aromanian (Vlach) political figure of Greece, active during the First and Second World Wars in connection with the Italian officials (who had occupied parts of Greece).

From Samarina to Rome via Bucharest

Diamandi was born in Samarina (at over 1,600 metres, the village situated at the highest altitude in Greece) to a family of wealthy Aromanian merchants. After attending the Romanian primary school in Samarina, he studied at the Greek Lyceum in Thessaloniki (at that time still part of the Ottoman Empire) and on the eve of the Balkan Wars in 1912 he left (as many other Vlachs of Greece) for Romania, where he enrolled at the Commercial Academy (Academia Comercială) in Bucharest, and graduated from it. As Romania entered World War I in 1916, Diamandi volunteered for military service, briefly serving as officer.

It is not clear whether he was discharged from the Romanian Army or rather dispatched by the Romanians to Albania where, under the Italian and French tutelage (see Birth of Albania), he became in 1918 co-founder of the short-lived Republic of Korytsá (Korçë in Albanian, Curceaua in Aromanian), which was supposed, under the makeshift name of the 'Republic of Pindus' to be the first autonomous state of the Vlachs of Epirus. While in Albania, Diamandi befriended the Albanian political figure Fan S. Noli, whose political ideals he shared.

After the withdrawal of the Italians, he sought refuge for a while at Sarandë in Albania, from where he fled to Rome - where he become involved with Benito Mussolini's Fascist political movement. He contacted the Romanian Legation and was issued a Romanian passport, with which he was able to travel to Greece. According to the Greek author Stavros Anthemides, Diamandi was 'pardoned' by the Greek authorities in 1927 for his resistance to Greek authorities.

The Athens years: A 'Prince' on the making

Shortly after the presumed amnesty, he arrived in Athens as the "vice president of the National Petroleum Company of Romania", as an oil importer. This was coupled with activities import in lumber imports wood from Romania to Greece, and some other business ventures. He rented a flat in the fashionable Kolonaki, and frequented the bars and cafes of Piraeus, where he had got involved in a brawl with a Greek navy captain named Giorgakis. During the squabble, Diamandi was wounded by a bottle flung in his direction by his adversary, and the resulting scar was used to identify him later on when he was on the run.

Diamandi frequently traveled to Rhodes (which was at the time an Italian possession), managing to attract the attention of the Greek Counter-intelligence Services. It is widely assumed that the Greeks were aware that Diamandi was an undercover Romanian agent who was trying to incite up the Aromanians against the Greek state. Already during Ioannis Metaxas's regime, Diamandi was served with an expulsion order, but he had managed to avoid being forced out while the political context was turning more and more in his advantage

Experiments in statehood: The 'Autonomou Kratou tis Pindou'

Italian poster titled The attack on Greece

When the Greco-Italian War started, at the end of October 1940, Diamandi was already in Konitsa on the Albanian-Greek border. The invading Italians offered him the rank of Commandatore, and he served as translator and assistant to the Italian Chief of Staff General Alfredo Guzzoni. After Italy's initial defeat, Diamandi was forced to seek refuge in Tirana (at that time under Italian rule) and re-entered Greece with the Italian armies five months later in the spring of 1941.

The Italian press of the time, jubilant on the advance into Greek Epirus

This time he went on to form the so-called Autonomou Kratou tis Pindou or Autonomou Vlahikou Kratou on the territory of Epirus, Thessaly and parts of Macedonia, which was supposed to constitute a Vlach Homeland. He started self-styling himself Principe and sketched the outlook of the Principality of Pindus for the Vlach region. Diamandi's deputy and right-hand was the Larissa-based lawyer Nikos Matoussi, while the third in the hierarchy of the nascent state was Rapoutikas Vassilis. The model for the Vlach state were the Swisscantons, united into a confederation - which meant, in this case, the Principality.

In June 1941, Diamandi found himself in Grebena and then to Metsovo, where he founded the Koma Koinotita Koutsovlachon, which were part of the Enosi Roumanikon Koinotiton (The Union of the Romanian Communities). A Vlach Parliament was summoned in Trikala, but no laws were drawn - since the Parliament had mostly a decorative role, as the Italians were not keen on sharing power in the region. Nevertheless, it did issue a series of local regulations, aimed at restricting the use of the Greek language in favour of Aromanian. It also carried out Dimanadi's wish to have the town and villages entry signs in Greek replaced with new ones in Aromanian and Italian. Thus, Metsovo became Aminciu in Aromanian and Mincio in Italian, Nympheon became Nevesca and Nevesa, Samarina was doubled by Santa Maria etc.

A Vlach Manifesto in occupied Greece

On March 1, 1942, Diamandi issued an ample Manifesto which was published in the local press and republished by Stavros Anthemides in 1997 (in his book on the Vlachs of Greece; see bibliography). The Manifesto was countersigned by leading Vlach intellectuals such as:

the lawyer Nikos Matoussi

Prof. Dimas Tioutras

the lawyer Vasilakis Georgios

the physician Dr. Frangkos Georgios

the teacher A. Beca

the businessman Gachi Papas

the physician Dr. Nikos Mitsibouna

Prof. Dim. Hatzigogou

the lawyer A. Kalometros

the engineer Niko Teleionis

Vasilis Tsiotzios

Prof. Kosta Nicoleskou

Prof. Toli Pasta

Dim. Tahas

Prof. Stefanos Kotsios

Prof. G. Kontoinani

Dr. Kaloera

Prof. Toli Hatzi

Giovani Mertzios of Neveska (whose son Nik. Merztios, in a twist of history, is a well known pro-Greek Vlach author of Greece)

Two Vlachs of Albania and Bulgaria, Vasilis Vartolis and the Samarina born writer Ziko Araias, known also as Zicu Araia also endorsed the Manifesto. In Romania, it was co-signed by the Veria-born George Murnu, a professor at the University of Bucharest. Diamandi travelled to Bucharest shortly after he met Murnu, and together they attended a meeting with the then Leader (Conducător) of Romania Marshal Ion Antonescu, and the Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu. The status of the Principality of Pindos was discussed.

One option favoured by Diamandi was to put the Principality under the sovereignty of the Romanian Crown (as an associated "free state"). Diamandi, as a Prince, would then have the right to atend the Consilii de Coroană ("Crown Councils"), which were to be held in Bucharest or in the Transylvanian Alps mountain spa and ski resort of Sinaia. Another option was to link the principality to the ruling Italian House of Savoy. None of these options was to be realised.

Refuge in Romania

Towards the second year of the Italian occupation, guerilla actions broke out in the area, between the Greek Resistance supported by the Allied Forces and the Italo-German side. The chaos that ensued drove Diamandi to leave (either that or he was ordered back) to Romania. His subsequent fate is unknown.

After Dimandi's abdication a baron of Hungarian-Aromanian descent named Gyula Milványi-Csesznegi was proclaimed Prince of the Pindus as Julius I, but neither Prince Julius, nor his brother Michael ever set foot on the territory of the state - nevertheless, some Aromanian leaders governed in their name.

Matoussi escaped, first to Athens than to Romania too, while Rapoutikas was shot dead by one of the Greek factions involved in guerilla activities just outside Larissa {the Greeks then tied his corpse on the back a donkey and paraded him through the Vlach villages of the Pindus - this was intended in order to scare the local populace and as a final proof that the Pindus Principality had reached its end).

Mysterious Diamandi's incomplete life story

There are many gaps in the biography of the secretive Prince Diamandi, and he is scarcely mentioned in most of the few books that deal with the period). According the to the German scholar Dr. Thede Kahl (see bibliography), Diamandi was for a while Kingdom of Romania's Consul in the Albanian port Vlorë just opposite across the strait of the Italian town of Otranto. The Greek historians usually avoid mentioning him altogether, while other scholars who give vague reference to him (such as Lena Divani or Mark Mazower) make sure that they clearly distance themselves from Diamandi hence bestowing upon him apelatives like "extremist" and "shameful", failing to bring to the surface new data or impartial informations as to the personality of Diamandi.

Alkiviadis Diamandi is given mention in 1995 by the British author Tim Salmon in his book about the Vlachs of Greece (see bibliography) as follows:

A pro-Mussolini teacher called Dhiamantis who returned to Samarina during the Occupation and tried to set up a fascist Vlach state the Principality of Pindus. It is possible that the idea of autonomy struck a chord in some nationalistic Vlach breasts but they certainly were not the collaborators he accused them of being.

The author finds the precedents of Diamandi's movement in the Vlachs' desire of separateness, which he sees as a sign of "strength". Other pasages of his book emphasize this aspect as well.

He writes:

Up to the 1920s the Vlakholoi - the Vlach clan as it were- had been so strong that the government could not really interfere with them. There had been Romanian schools (financed from Romania from around the Treaty of Berlin in 1881 which forced the Turks to cede Thessaly to Greece, drawing the frontier through Metsovo and thus dividing the Greek Vlachdom in Yannina, Thessaloniki and Grevena up until 1940. In fact, there was one in Samarina itself.

Vlach Legionnaires and Iron Guardists

There are today few refferences to Diamandi and his Roman Legion in the Greek media. Yet recently there seems to be a revived interest in this obscure period of Vlach history. The English Professor Clogg recently published an article for the daily newspaper Kathimerini, sheding light on this issue. The following is a fragment of it, with the permission of the author:[1] (Saturday, September 8th, 2005):

Just before Christmas 1944, as theDekemvrianaraged in Athens, the Germans called for Greek-speaking volunteers from among these Iron Guardists for a mission to Greece. Three Greek-speaking Vlach volunteers were dispatched to Guntramsdorf near Vienna. Here they were billeted with 11 Vlachs who had retreated from Greece alongside the German forces. These 11 may well have been involved with the Vlach Roman Legion, created by the Italians in Thessaly and Epirus.

The 14 were then trained for the mission by an Oberleutnant Prinz and a Lieutenant Lorre. This lasted for less than three weeks and involved the use of machine guns, automatic pistols and pistols, along with camouflage and sabotage techniques, including the use of time fuses and booby traps. Two of the party were sent to Murau for training as wireless operators. The entire group was trained for parachute landings, although in the turmoil of the rapidly disintegrating Third Reich they never completed a practice jump.

The mission team was initially scheduled to be parachuted into Greece on the night of January 30-31, 1945, when there was a full moon, but the flight was called off due to bad weather. A fortnight later, however, on February 13, the party was hauled out of a cinema and told they would be flying that night. They were given last-minute instructions by Lieutenant Lorre.

As they subsequently told their British interrogators, the mission was given £700 in pounds sterling and dollar bills, along with 50 gold sovereigns. Two radio transmitters, with appropriate codes, two light machine guns, two automatic pistols, together with explosives, detonators, fuses and timing mechanisms were packed into four containers which were to be dropped with them. The party was dressed in civilian clothes for they were not part of any military unit, neither German or Romanian, and each member was given a revolver before embarking on a Junkers 52 at Wiener Neustadt airfield base.

Their mission was to radio information three times a week on the political situation in Greece, with particular reference to EAM/ELAS; on the strength and location of British forces; and on the strength and popularity of the Greek government and of the forces at its disposal. Through intrigue and propaganda they were to foment civil strife and bad blood wherever possible. At a later stage, they were to sabotage roads and bridges. They would be supplied by parachute drops. It was intended that some members of the mission should, if possible, actually join ELAS. They were given no contacts in Greece and no arrangements were made for their evacuation. Instead, bizarrely, they were told to await the return of German forces to Greece. Presumably in their internment camps they had been so cut off from accurate information that they had little idea as to how badly the war was going for the Germans.

Upon parachuting into Greece at 3 a.m. on February 14, the party, as often happened with such missions, was widely scattered. A group of seven was unable to link up with the other members of the team. Nor were they able to recover the crates containing their supplies, which appear to have been collected by local villagers. The seven soon became aware of the hopelessness of their situation and decided to embark on the perilous journey from the Peloponnese overland to Romania.

They did not get very far before being captured. They had been dropped near Kerpini. After lying up for a day, they gradually made their way northward, via Valtesinikon, Karvouni and Kato Klitoria to Kalavryta, which they reached at midday on February 17. Here they took the train to Diakopton, where they arrived on the evening of the same day. That same evening, two members of the party went into a kafeneio in Diakopton where they made the mistake of offering a gold sovereign in payment. The cafe owner was unable to offer change for such a valuable coin, whereupon they proffered a dollar bill. They seemingly had no Greek money with them. Their behavior aroused suspicion and they were arrested by two members of the Greek armed forces. The arrested men revealed where the other five members of the party were staying. One of the members of the second group was also arrested on February 17 in hiding in Dafni, while there were reports of another member being held captive in Kalivia. Yet another member of this second group had parachuted into a tree and was reported to have been captured in Mouria.

A top secret account of their abortive mission is contained in a report compiled in Corinth on February 20, 1945, by a British officer, Captain P.M. Gardner. He took part in the interrogation of the leader of the party, Ion Adanucu, and of one of the wireless operators, George Varduli. The other members are listed as George Geagea, the deputy leader; Vasile Ciunga; Nicolae Anagnosta, the second wireless operator; Achile Gulea; Anton Janculi; Miltiadi Zeana; George and Vasile Dica (presumably related, perhaps brothers); Panaiot Simu; Sterie Cutova; Naum Colimitra and Spiru Hasioti.This mission party, which may not have been the only one despatched to Greece at the time, was launched two months to the day before Vienna was liberated by Soviet troops. The subsequent fate of the party is not clear. Were they repatriated to Romania? Here their fate in a country where the Communists, bitterly hostile to the Iron Guard, were remorselessly tightening their grip would have been harsh, just as it would have been had they found themselves in Russian-occupied Vienna. Did they disappear into the sea of displaced persons in a Europe freed from Nazi tyranny? Or did they, like a number of Iron Guardists, end up in Francisco Franco's Spain or in South America?

It has also been supposed that Diamandi ended up with them in hiding in the abovementioned locations and subsequently assumed another identity.

From medieval Thessalian Wallachia to Diamandi's 'Principality': an outline of Vlach secessionist trends in Greece

It has to be said that Diamandi never enjoyed 'good reviews' from the historians. Quite the contrary. Labeled as extremist and collaborationist, he is often presented as being an 'aberration'. Yet these scholars often forget that the history of the Vlachs in Greece is in itself a long struggle for achieving own statehood and separatness. Diamandi is not the odd exception but the rule. In fact, he based his seccessionist doctrine on this long tradition of Vlach rebellion and penchant for separatness and secession.

As their Latin language to which they stubbornly clung for two thousand years shows, the Vlachs are a live proof of the presence of these Roman conquerors in Greece. As Tom Winnifrith points out, having conquered for good 'Greece' (in fact the Greek city sates) already at 146 B.C. the Roman legions settled their own kind in the strategic locations and along Via Egnatia. The Greek state ceased to exist as such. Greece was restored in its lesser version only at 1831.

The Vlachs were for the first time incorporated in Greece only at 1881 when Thessaly was offered to Greece by the Great Powers shortly after the Treaty of Berlin. The bulk of the Vlachs became part of the Greek state as recently as 1913 after Epirus and parts of Macedonia became part of Greece after the Treaty of Bucharest. Since the times of the Byzantine Empire, the Vlachs revolted permanently and did not stand the foreign rule. The Byzantine historian Kekaumenos writes about revolt of Vlachs of Thessaly in 1066 under their chieftain Verivoi. Niketas Honiatis describes a Great Wallachia comprising Thessaly, as opposed to other two "Wallachias" quoted by Frantzes: Little Wallachia in Acarnania and Aetolia, and an Upper Wallachia in Epirus. The existence of these free entities is confirmed by the Western chronicles Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Henri de Valenciennes, Robert de Clary, and by those who wrote about the rebellion of the Vlachs of the Chaemus (Chalcidice) Peninsula, 1196 A.D.

As the Greek historian John Koliopoulos points out, when Thessaly became to be part of Greece at 1881, the bulk of the Vlachs of this province petitioned the Great Powers of the time to be let to stay within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire where they thought they enjoyed more freedom of movement.

Terminology

The Legion Diamandi had gathered under his lead made reference to the Roman Empire's Legio V Macedonica. Chosen for the common belief that Legions were the factors behind the modern-day Romance languages and Latin Europe, the name particularly enhanced the connection with Romania - as the Vth Legion had spent time in both Macedonia province and Dacia - and presumably complimented Italian Fascism and its claim to Imperial dominance).

The names of the main institutions and of the Principality itself were given in Greek and, were possible, Romanian. Reference in Aromanian was not available.

The first prince was the Aromanian head of a separatist organisation known as the Roman Legion: Alkiviadis Diamandi di Samarina, who established his court. In 1942 a faction of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) offered the throne of Macedonia to HH the Prince Alchibiades, thus he held the titles: "His Highness, the Prince of Pindus" and "His Most Serene Excellence, the Voivode of Macedonia". Alchibiades was a patron of the arts and an amateur sculptor himself (Zambounis, 2001, see References). He left the state in 1942, and took refuge in Romania, his successor for a very short time was Nicholas Matoussi, then the title was offered for the Milványi Csesznegi family honouring that they had supplied the Italian Army with cereals, but Prince Julius who held the title between August-September in 1943 did not hold any real power, and his brother Michael never set foot on the territory of the state. Nevertheless, some Aromanian and Macedonian leaders governed in their names. In 1944 the German authorities recognized M. Hatzi as leader of their Aromanian supporters.

Due to the chaotic political and military situation the succession rules were not set. Nevertheless it seems that the Principality - like the former Romanian states - was an elective and not a hereditary monarchy.

Thursday, 21 September 2006

If a line is drawn running through Albania, Macedonia and Thrace on to Constantinople, the structure of the indigenous Balkan population splits as follows: south of this line there are mainly Greeks, while north of it one finds the Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians. Traditionally scholars have seen the Dacians as the ancestors of the modern Romanians and Vlachs and the Illyrians as the proto-Albanians (some linguists, however, have brought serious arguments supporting a Dacian-Moesian origin of the Albanians). As an result of numerous invasions (the most significant one being that of the Slavs) many of these indigeneous were killed, others fled to walled cities, to the islands, or withdrew to the mountains or other remote places, reappearing later as Vlachs or Albanians who begin to turn up in written sources in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The relation between Vlachs and Slavs exposes a kind of law of history: conquerors occupy easily exploitable resources, rebels withdraw to to seemingly less hospitable lands where they can still preserve their freedom. These roles were played by the romanized Dacians (plainsmen) and the un-romanized Carps (mountaineers), while after the Slavic invasions, the Romanized plainsmen were forced into the mountains and the Slavs occupied the plains. Centuries after, following the Ottoman conquest, many Slav peasants abandoned the plains to join the Vlach folk of the mountains, and the plains came into the possession of the Turks.

Evidence on the Latin-speakers North of the Danube is provided by the anonymous chancellor of King Bela, to the effect that the Hungarian settlers on the plains of the Tisza and Danube rivers (by the end of the 9-th century) found there "Slavi, Bulgarii, et Blachi ac pastores Romanorum " .

Archaeologial research on cemeteries of early medieval rural settlements in Transylvania (the best known example is that of Bratei, near Medias) points to the development of a new people, Latinic, but with customs and traditions inherited in equal measure from the Dacians and the Romans.

The Eastern Romance continued to evolve until, at the Slavic Invasion (about 600 AD) the Daco-Roman dialect began to separate from the three dialects spoken south of the Danube, Macedo-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian. It is believed that the four dialects became fully distinct during the 9-th and 10-th centuries.

One of Greece's first and best prime ministers was John Kolettis, a Vlach who dressed like a Turk and had been court physician to Ali Pasha.

In 1797, the first primer of Vlach was published, in Greek characters, by Constantin Oukontas, a priest originating from Moschopolis. In 1813, M.J. Bojadischi published a Vlach grammar, 22 years before the first Bulgarian grammar. The book contains dialogues taking place between a visiting Pole and a Viennese Vlach - as if Vlach had become a Central European lingua franca ... Actually, the beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant emergence of the Vlach consciousness: it was mostly related to Moschopolis , a city which hosted many rich Vlach merchants, very likely to be educated men.

An significant moment is related to the activity of Apostol Margarit, a Vlach teacher who tried to teach his pupils in their own language. In 1864 the first Romanian school started near Monastir. Margarit set up schools in Avdhella (1867) and Grevena (1869).

Today, the 'official' Greek (nationalist) position on the Aromanian minority is that the Vlachs are generally Greeks who happen to speak a Latin dialect. There is not enough evidence favoring this claim. For more details on Aromanians and their historians one may see the book of Tom Winnifrith , "The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People" (New York, St.Martin's Press, 1987).

MOSCHOPOLIS:

Moscopole

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Voskopojë, Voskopoja; Aromanian: Moscopole, Moscopolea; Greek: Μοσχόπολις, Moscopolis or Moschopolis; Macedonian: Moskopole; Serbian: Moskopolje) is a small village in southeastern Albania. In the 18th century, it was a major Balkan city and cultural and commercial center of the Aromanians (Vlachs), having notably the first printing press in the Balkans, but it was razed in 1788 by Ali Pasha.

Contents

History

Although located in rather inhospitable place in the mountains between Greece and Albania, the city rose to became the most important center of the Aromanians. In its glory days (1760s) it is said that it had a population surpassing 60,000 and was the second city of the Balkans as population and prosperity, surpassed only by Istanbul; but this is questioned by Peyfuss.

The city is said to have been inhabited almost exclusively by Vlachs/Aromanians. An 1935 analysis of the family names shows that the majority of the population were indeed Vlachs. There were also Greek merchants, although according to the German historian Johann Thunmann who visited Moscopole and wrote a history of the Aromanians in 1774, everyone in the city spoke Aromanian; many also spoke Greek (the language of the church), which was used for writing contracts.

Toward the end of the 18th century it flourished due to commerce with Germany, Venice and Constantinople and it had various manufacturing plants, around 70 churches, banks, a printing press (the only other press of Ottoman Europe was in Istanbul) and even a university (The New Academy, or Hellênikon Frôntistêrion, founded in 1744). A cultural effervescence arose in Moscopole, and many authors published their works in both Greek language (which was the language of culture of the Balkans at the time) and Aromanian written in the Greek alphabet. In 1770, the first dictionary of four modern Balkan languages (Greek, Albanian, Vlach/Aromanian and Bulgarian) was published here. (Peyfuss)

The 1769 sacking and pillaging of the Ottomans was just the first one from a series of attacks, which culminated with the razing of 1788 by the Albanian troops of Ali Pasha. The survivors were thus forced to flee, most of them emigrating to Greece (where they returned to their ancestral occupation of animal husbandry), Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Some of the commercial elite moved to Austria-Hungary, especially to the two capitals Vienna and Budapest, but also in Transylvania, where they had an important role in the early National awakening of Romania.

Names and Classification

Aromanian shepherd in traditional clothes, photo from the early 1900s.

The name Armăn - EN Aromanian, just as Romanian, derives directly from LatinRomanus ("Roman") through regular sound changes. Adding "a" in front of certain words that begin with a consonant is a feature of the Aromanian language. In Albania, the most common form is rămăni.

Nominated according to the geographic area, Aromanians are in grouped into several "branches": "Pindians" (concentrated around the Pindus Mountains in the south-western of the Republic of Macedonia, north Epirus, and western Tessaly), "Gramustians" (from Gramos Mountains, concentrated in the western of the Greek province of Macedonia and the northernmost of Epirus), "Muzachiars" (from Muzachia) and "Farserots" (from Pharsala, concentrated in south of Epirus, in Aetolia-Acarnania, area known in the Middle Ages as Small Wallachia). The first three groups call themselves Armâni, while the Farserots (with a distinct dialect) call themselves Rrămăni. All three are called Vlahi in Greek. Vlachs was a term used in the Medieval Balkans, as an exonym for all the Romanic people of the region, but nowadays, it is commonly used only for the Aromanians and Meglenites, the Romanians being named Vlachs only in historical context. Interesting to note that the term Vlach also meant "bandit" or "rebel" in medieval historiography.

The Gramustians and Pindians are nicknamed in Greece Cutsovlachs meaning "limping Vlachs". Another name used to refer to the Aromanians (mainly in the Slavic countries such as Serbia and Bulgaria) is "tsintsar", which is derived from the way the Aromanians say the word 'five': "cinci". Some Vlachs are called "Arvanitoblachoi", meaning Albanian speaking Vlachs, referring to their second language, Albanian instead of Greek. Albanians also call them "Chobans", a word also used to refer to them in Greek ("chobani" "τσομπάνοι").

Origins

There are many theories regarding the origins of the Aromanians. In Greece, they are believed to be descending from a local Greek population that was Latinised immediately following the Roman conquest of Greece, or later, during the first centuries of the Byzantine Empire when Latin continued to be the official language. On the contrary, in Romania they are considered to be the descendants of Latinised Dacian settlers who emigrated to the south.

Culture

Traditional Culture

Aromanians Today

In Greece

Greece does not recognize the existence of national minorities within its boundaries and pursued an active policy of "ethnic homogenization" (see Hellenization) since its formation in 1832. The Aromanians are not regarded as an ethnic minority, but are considered "Latin-speaking Greeks" (i.e. Greeks that speak a Romance language), as cognate with the Macedonian and Bulgarian minorities which are called "slavophone Greeks" (i.e. Greeks that speak a Slavic language, or the Arvanites which are called "albanophone Greeks" (i.e. Greeks that speak Albanian), since none of them express a non-hellenic ethnic identity. Generally, the use of the minority languages has been discouraged[5], although recently, there have been efforts from the Greek presidency to preserve the endangered languages (including Aromanian)

It is difficult to estimate the exact number of Aromanians because of the elusive nature and multiple factors, pertaining mainly to language (see Aromanian#Identity Crisis). Estimates on the number of Aromanians in Greece range between 250,000 to 700,000 [6].

The majority of the Aromanian population lives in northern Greece, in scattered rural communities. The main areas inhabited by these populations are the Pindus Mountains, Meglan, around Lake Prespa, and around the mountains of Olympus and Vermion.

In Albania

The second largest Aromanian community lives in Albania, counting between 100,000 and 200,000 people. There are currently timid attempts to establish education in their native language in the town of Divjaka. The Aromanians, under the name "Vlachs", are a recognized national minority in the Albanian constitution.

For the last years there seems to be a renewal of the former policies of supporting and sponsoring of Romanian schools on the behalf of the Vlachs of Albania. As a recent article in the Romanian media points out, the kindergarten, primary and secondary schools in the Albanian town of Divjaka where the local Vlach pupils are taught classes both in Aromanian and Romanian were granted substantial help directly from the Romanian government. The only Aromanian language church in Albania, the 'Schimbarea la fata' of Korce (Curceaua in Aromanian) was given 2 billion lei help from the Romanian government too. Many of the Albanian Aromanians have immigratted to Greece as homogeneis, since they are considered part of the Greek minority in Albania.

In the Republic of Macedonia

According to official government figures (census 2002), there are 9,695 Aromanians or Vlachs as they are officially called in the Republic of Macedonia, even though other sources estimate their numbers as high as 20,000 or even more than 100.000 according to their associations' and other estimates[5]. The Aromanians are recognized as an ethnic minority, and are hence represented in parliament and enjoy ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious rights and the right to education in their language.

They have also received financial support from the Romanian government, which made recognition of the Republic of Macedonia's independence conditional on the extension of minority rights to the Aromanians.

In Bulgaria

In Bulgaria most Aromanians were concentrated in the region south-west of Sofia, in the region called Pirin, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire until 1913. After 1913, a massive campaign of bulgarisation started under the auspice of the Bulgarian Government.[citation needed] Due to this reasons, a large part of these Aromanians moved to the Southern Dobrogea, part of the Kingdom of Romania since the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913, and after its reinclusion in Bulgaria with the Treaty of Craiova of 1940, moved to Northern Dobrogea. Another group moved to northern Greece. Nowadays, the largest group of Aromanians in Bulgaria is found in the southern mountainous area, around Peshtera. Besides Aromanians, in the northern part, Bulgaria also hosts an ethnic Romanian minority, along the Danube, from Vidin to Rousse. To the border with Serbia, there are other groups of Vlachs (see Vlachs of Serbia), who speak a language identical to modern Romanian, although they prefer to call it "Vlach" (see Vlach language (Serbia)).

After the fall of communism in 1989, Aromanians, Romanians and "Vlachs" have started initiatives to organize themselves under one common association [7][8][9].

According to the 1926 official census, there were: 69.080 Romanians, 5.324 Aromanians, 3.777 Cutzovlachs, and 1.551 "Tsintsars".

According to the 2001 census, there are 10,566 "Vlachs" (Aromanians) and 1,088 Romanians in Bulgaria [6].

In Romania

Since the Middle Ages, due to the Turkish occupation and the destruction of their cities, such as Moscopole, many Aromanians fled their homeland in the Balkans to settle the Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which had a similar language and a certain degree of autonomy from the Turks. These immigrant Aromanians were more or less assimilated into the Romanian population.

In 1925, 47 years after Dobrogea was incorporated into Romania, King Carol II of Romania gave the Aromanians land and privilleges to settle in this region, in order to achieve relative majority of vlach-speakers in a region formelly inhabited mostly by Bulgarians, which resulted in a significant migration of Aromanians into Romania. Today, the 25% of the population of the region are descendants of Greek Aromanian immigrants (especially from Thessaly and Central Macedonia.[citation needed]

There are currently between 25,000 and 50,000 Aromanians in Romania, most of which are concentrated in Dobrogea, although Aromanian assosiations place the total number of people of Aromanian descent in Romania as high as 250,000. Due to their cultural closeness to ethnic Romanians, most of them do not consider themselves to be a distinct ethnic minority but rather a "cultural minority"[citation needed]. Recently, there has been a growing movement in Romania, both by Aromanians and by Romanian lawmakers, to recognize the Aromanians either as a separate cultural group or as a separate ethnic group, and extend to them the rights of other minorities in Romania, such as mother-tongue education and representatives in parliament.

Diaspora

In Germany, at Freiburg, is situated one of the most important Aromanian organisations, the Union for Culture and Language of the Aromanians, and one of the largest libraries in Aromanian language.

In the United States, The Society Fărşărotul, is one of the oldest and most known associations of Aromanians, founded in 1903 by Nicolae Cican, an Aromanian native of Albania. The Fărşărotul society is under constant monitoring of the Greek Embassy in Washington, being sometimes accused of "anti-Greek" activities[citation needed]. That is because generally, the Aromanians outside of Greece tend to separatist ideals.

In France, the Aromanians are grouped in the Trâ Armânami cultural association.

Identity Crisis

Aromanians have played an important role in the history of almost all modern Balkan states, especially Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Romania. Prominent Aromanians include Pitu Guli, also known as "Peter the Vlach", (Bulgarian/Macedonian revolutionary), Ioannis Kolettis (prime minister of Greece), Evangelos Averof (minister of Defence of Greece), Andrei Saguna (Romanian patriot), the Ghica family (Wallachian and Moldavian voivodes and Romanian Prime Ministers), etc. See List of prominent Aromanians.

But while in most neighbouring countries the separateness of the Aromanian language, culture, history, traditions, and beliefs has been acknowledged to lesser or greater degrees, in Greece there has the development of a Greek identity on the part of many Aromanians, coroborated with a longstanding government-supported process of linguistic assimilation.

Here, besides the geographical/linguistic classification, another classification divides the Aromanians into two branches: an anti-Greek and a philo-Greek faction. The greekophiles have been pejoratively called by the rest of the Aromanians as "grecomani" respective "cataoni", "katchani" or "caciauni". Interesting to note is that the Sarakatsani, according to Romanian scholars, are a tribe of Aromanians, completely Hellenicized sometimes in the 18th and 19th century.

This government supported "Hellenisation" of the minorities of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, dates back centuries ago, and was noticed by many historians and observers of the Greek society.

Many Aromanians of Greece have locally specific ideas regarding their origin and role in Greek society and history. Many identify themselves as heirs of the Byzantine tradition, and hence consider themselves "Latin-speaking Greeks", while pro-Greek vlachs argue that the Greek language of the Byzantine empire has a bearing on links to Greek culture.

The early history of the Aromanians in Greece includes several struggles, usually for social reasons, and Aromanians in several countries have a tradition of rebellion and penchant for separateness and secession.

Arrived from somewhere to the north as descendants "of the Thracian tribe of Bessi"[10], they become part of the Byzantine Empire. Since these times, the history of the Vlachs, who were constantly regarded as a nuisance by the Greeks[11], whose history was marked by permanent rebellions and struggle against the imperial rule. Great Wallachia existed until 980 when emperor Basil II conferred the domination over the Vlachs of Thessaly on one Nicoulitza. The revolt of the Vlachs in 1066 under their chieftain Verivoi, as attested by the Byzantine historian Kekaumenos, would provide total independence. Nicetas Choniates, Benjamin of Tudela[12], Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Henri de Valenciennes, Robert de Clary, and other sources accounts the existence of this Great Wallachia, comprising Thessaly, as opposed to other two "Wallachias", Little Wallachia in Acarnania and Aetolia, and an Upper Wallachia in Epirus. This coincides with the period of the first Vlachian state entities across the Balkan Peninsula: Great Wallachia, the Vlach-Bulgar Empire, Wallachia and Moldavia. Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish Jew who visited Thessaly in 1173, describes the Vlachs as living in the mountains and coming down from them to attack the Greeks. In relation with the Byzantine Empire, he adds: "no Emperor can conquer them" [13]. Interesting to note that Benjamin of Tudela did not describe them as a separate ethnic group, but as a group of rebels, who may had Jewish origins.

During the Ottoman ruling, Aromanian culture and economic power became more evident, as Vlachs concentrated in urban center, some of which were considered huge, characterized with the standards of those times. For example Moscopole at that time was one of the largest cities of the Balkans, having a population of 60.000. For comparison, at that time Athens was a village inhabited by 8,000 people. Moscopole had its own printing houses and academies, current water and sewerage network. They enjoyed some degree of religious and cultural autonomy within the Greek Orthodox millet (a Turkish term for a legally protected ethnic and religious minority groups). They enjoyed a special status, being formally exempted from the law prohibiting non-Muslims from carrying weapons [14], only having to pay a modest tribute to the Ottomans. Their cities were destroyed by the Ottomans: Moscopole was raised to the ground in 1778 by the troops of Ali Pasha. This episode and the Orthodox religion of the Vlachs were the factors which caused a violent and energetic struggle against the Ottomans, assigning to the Vlachs a major role in the various wars and revolutions that culminated in the creation of the states which they now inhabit: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Republic of Macedonia. Later, all of these freedom fighters would have been attributed "Hellenic" reasons in their actions and ideology. There are indeed to be found people of Aromanian origin among the protagonists of early Greek political life, as they found opportunities to establish themselves in this new state. This is explained by the fact that many Aromanians adopted the Greek language under the influence of the Greek schools and churches, the only ones entitled by the Ottomans to function and to by maintained by the Patriarchs of Constantinople (all of whom were of Greek origin). Interesting to note that Patriarch Athenagoras (born during the Ottoman rule in Epirus), was of Aromanian origins, and thus considered a Greek by descent.

Sir Charles Eliot's (British Diplomat to the Porte) contemporary view of the Vlachs identity is clear from work "Turkey in Europe": "...The Bulgarians, Serbs and Vlachs have Millets of their own and do not cooperate in the Hellenic cause" [...] "we hear of Vlach bands who are said to contend (fight against) Greeks in the region of Karaferia (Veria)"[15]. Indeed, as early as the time of the Byzantines when Vlachs raided the lowlands inhabited by the Greeks, and during the time when Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire, Greek Armatoloi (military/police units) deserving the Turks were one of the greatest enemies of the Aromanians. Whereas the Klephts had been their allies.

Following the destruction of their major urban centers, histography[citation needed] speaks about a "re-pastoralization" of the Vlachs, returning to their basic traditional occupation, animal husbandry. Other thousands of Vlachs, many of them belonging to the Aromanian intelligentsia, emigrated northward to Wallachia, Moldavia, Serbia or the Habsburg Empire (notably to Vienna and Budapest).

Their arrival there coincided with the establishment in Europe of the ideals of the 1789-1799 French Revolution: nationhood, equality, mother tongue and "human rights". In the Habsburg occupied Transylvania, they will connect with the latinophile Romanian intelligentsia, as part of what was known as the Transylvanian School. These intellectuals promoted the ideas which would spark the period known as the National awakening of Romania, which, after a century's time ceased to be under de jure Ottoman rule. It is in these times that Aromanian personalities became prominent, such as Gheorghe Roja, the author of "Untersuchungen uber die Romanier oder sogenannten Wlachen, welche jenseits der Donau wohnen" ("Researches upon the Romanians or the so-called Vlachs who live beyond the Danube"; Pesth, 1808). The first attempt to create a literary language for those described as "Macedo-Romanians" was Roja's "Maiestria ghiovasirii romanesti cu litere latinesti, care sant literele Romanilor ceale vechi"(Buda, 1809). Another Vlach emigrant was Mihail G. Boiagi. He would publish in 1813 in Vienna "Gramatica romana sau macedo-romana" (Romanian or Macedo-Romanian grammar). In the foreword to his work, Boiagi wrote: "Even if the Vlachs would claim, say Hotenton origin, even in that case they ought to have the right and duty to cultivate themselves in their mother tongue, as the most appropriate way to fulfill their creed". The Metsovo born D.D. Cozacovici would publish in 1865 "Gramatica Romaneasca tra Romanilii dit drepta Dunarelei lucrata de D. Athanasescu, si typarita cu spesele D.D. Cosacovici, Roman din Metsova, spre an inaugura prima scoala Romana din Macedonia, Bucuresti 1865" ("Romanian Grammar to serve the South of the Danube Romanians worked by Dimitrie Athanasescu and printed from the donations of D.D. Cozacovici, Romanian of Metsovo in order to inaugurate the first Romanian school of Macedonia").

The pressure on Aromanians to become linguistically assimilated can be traced back to the 18th century, when assimilation efforts were encouraged by the Greek missionary Kosmas Aitolos (1714-1779) who taught that Aromanians should speak Greek because as he said "it's the language of our Church" and established over 100 Greek schools in northern and western Greece. The offensive of the clergy against the use of Aromanian was by no means limited to religious issues but was a tool devised in order to convince the non-Greek speakers to abandon what they regarded as a "worthless" idiom and adopt the superior neo-Greek speech: "There we are Metsovian brothers, together with those who are fooling themselves with this sordid and vile Aromanian language... forgive me for calling it a language", "repulsive speech with a disgusting diction"[16].

Cover of Les Aroumains, of Aromanian writer Nicolae Trifon.

A century later, almost 100 Romanian schools were opened in the Ottoman territories of Macedonia and Albania, starting as early as 1860. It is very important to be noted that this initiative was proposed by the Aromanian Diaspora living in Bucharest. The first nucleus of the Romanian schooling in Macedonia and Pindus was to be established in 1860 and its initiators were a group of Aromanians then living in Bucharest: D.D. Cozacovici (native of Metsovo), Zisu Sideri, Iordache Goga (native of Klissoura) and others. Together they initiated the "Society for Macedo-Romanian Culture", under the endorsement of the then Romanian ruling class. "Societatea Culturala Macedo-Romana" ("The Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society") had as its members (together with its Aromanian founding core represented by D.D. Cozacovici, Sideri, Goga, Grandea etc.) also the acting Prime and Foreign Ministers, as well as the Head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and the elite of the Romanian political class: Mihail Kogălniceanu, Ion Ghica, Constantin Rosetti, etc.

At their peak, just before the Balkan wars, there were 6 secondary gymnasiums, and 113 primary schools, teaching in Romanian. Greeks didn't saw these schools with a good eye. The city of Metsovo (Aminciu in Aromanian) was destroyed in 1854 not only by Turkish forces, but also by the Greeks [17], and the Romanian school in the village of Avdhela in Pindus, which was one of the first Romanian schools, active as early as 1867, was burned and raised to the ground on October 27th 1905 by Greek guerillas[18]. This event prompted street anti-Greek demonstrations in Bucharest in the autumn of 1905 of the Aromanians living there, and a rupture of diplomatic relations between Romania and Greece [19].

Romania subsidized schools until 1948 when the communist regime ended all links. George Padioti, an Aromanian author (born and living all his life in Greece) describes how the last Romanian school was closed down by the Greek government: February 1952, the Aromanian Church 'Biserica ramana Santu Dumitru', burned by German troops in spring 1944. The priest Costa Bacou officiated the last allowed liturgy in Aromanian language. Afterwards, he was not permitted anymore because he refused to forcibly officiate the divine service in Greek language"[20].

Greek historians, when mentioning the Vlachs that attended the Romanian sponsored churches and schools of Macedonia, Epirus and parts of Albania, describes them as being victims of Romanian propaganda, for the reason that they sent their children to schools where they were taught that they are Romanians.

Due to the sponsoring of the schools, the Kingdom of Romania of was accused by Greece[citation needed] of alliance with the Ottomans. The Vlachs, recognized as a separate nation by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, were for the first time incorporated in Greece only at 1881 when Thessaly and a part of Epirus were offered to Greece by the Great Powers, under the same treaty. Having been split into two by the new borders, the bulk of the Vlachs of these province petitioned [21] the Great Powers of the time to be let to stay within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, but in vain. Greece followed a policy of creating a Greater Greece, according to the "Megali Idea". Most of the Aromanians became part of the Greek state only as recently as 1913 after the rest of Epirus and parts of Macedonia became part of Greece after the First Balkan War.

Roughly at the same time, the first objective and scientific works regarding the Aromanians were made by western observers. Among these, names like Rebecca West, Osbert Lancaster or Sir Charles Eliot's are worth to be mentioned. Lancaster, who visited Greece in 1947, stated:

"Although Metsovo, with its gigantic plane tree in the middle of the little square, its stone paved streets and abundant gardens, is typical of many a village in Epirus, in respect of its inhabitants it is unique. The Vlachs, to which race this people belong, are nomads, claiming with some degree of probability descent from the Roman colonists of the Danube valley. In former times they were far more numerous than to-day, occupying the larger part of Thrace and Macedonia and establishing in the twelfth century a Bulgaro-Vlach empire in Thessaly which survived in practical independence until the coming of the Turk.

Although for the most part herdsmen, horse-breeder and shepherds following their beasts from pasture to pasture and living in temporary encampments of round wattle huts, the existence of urban settlements, of which Metsovo is the most considerable, would seem to afford evidence that, their nomadism is not natural but acquired. In general they are fairer in complexion and more industrious in their habits than the Greeks whom they affect to despise"[22]

"The Vlachs, this very interesting people are not Greek at all but a race of nomads, who come down from the Balkan lands in the winter with their flock and pass the cold months in Greece. They are shepherd by business, and their tribal name has become a sort of synonym for an ancient profession. Generally they are a people as kindly as they are picturesque, patriarchally hospitable and good sportsmen, as many an English Consul knows, and by no means ill favoured"[23]

The interbellic time period is of great interest regarding the Aromanian history. The main event was the immigration of the Aromanians in the first decades of the 20th century,. One of the reasons for the sudden departure of the Vlachs, had to do with the policies of the Greek state, who had to accommodate one and a half million of Greeks of Asia Minor following the 1923 exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. In addition, the Romanian state had offered them land and privilleges, in order to populate its new province of Dobrogea, soon after annexing it from Bulgaria. The 25% of the region's population still traces its origins in Greece.

In 1926, the Legislative Orders in Government Gazette #331 ordered the names of all Macedonian, Aromanian, Albanian and Turkish villages, towns, mountains, etc. to be changed to Greek. [24]. Greek was set as the only allowed liturgical language.[25]. In 1939, the Greek government issued a law by which any demand for national right was considered "high treason", punishable with death [26]. During the ruling of General Metaxas (1936-1940), the use of Vlach language in public or private was made illegal (Law 23666)[27].

The last important act for non Greek-ruling constitutes the Principality of Pindus episode. During WWII, the Italian attack on Greece provided an opportunity for some Aromanians to create what they called "Vlach homeland". This fascist puppet state would survive until 1947, when it would be reincorporated in Greece. When referring to this moment, modern Greek histography describes the Aromanians as victims of Romanian "agents", which infiltrated Greece to spread "Italo-Romanian Propaganda".

Aromanians today come after more than 50 years after the closure of the last school and church in the Romanian language. The old term "Vlach" is still used as a "pejorative" by Greeks [28], but the modern term denoting vlach, "vlahos", has become quite separate. It was after the Regime of the Colonels when the first local cultural organizations were formed to prevent the extinction of the language and culture. These organisations never had government support. Aromanian language had never been included in the educational curriculum of Greece, as it had always been a vulgar tangue. On the contrary, their use has been strongly discouraged. Such attitudes have led many Vlach parents to discourage their children from learning their mother tongue so to avoid similar discrimination and mistreatments. [29]. Currently there is no education for Aromanian children in their mother tongue, and there are no public televisions or radio-stations emitting fully or partially in Aromanian.

The European Parliamentary Assembly examined a report on the Aromanians in 1997 which reported the critical situation of the Aromanian language and culture (see the report), and adopted a recommendation (see recommendation) that the Greek government should do whatever is necessary to respect their culture and facilitate education in Aromanian and to implement it’s use in schools, churches and the media. The Panhellenic Federation of Aromanians rejected any idea of an officially-sanctioned distinction between them and the other Greeks. On the other hand, there is a small minority within the community which strongly supports such efforts. On a visit to Metsovo, Epirus in 1998, the Greek President Costis Stephanopoulos called on Aromanians to speak and teach their language, so as not to be lost. To this day there are no schools or churches which teach or hold service in Aromanian language. Referring to this incident, Panayote Elias Dimitras, from the Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group stated: "Greek society and the vast majority of Greek intellectuals have yet to come to terms with the fact that Greece is not a homogenous society; that one can be a Greek citizen but have a non-Greek ethnonational identity..(..)For almost all Greeks, Greek citizens can freely enjoy their cultural diversity as long as they have strong Greek ethnonational identity and seek no minority status. This is how hundred of thousands of Albanian-speaking Arvanites and Aromanian-speaking Vlachs have been "successfully" incorporated in (i.e. assimilated by) modern Greek national culture: they have been showing a strong, even extreme, degree of attachment to Greek nationalism, in exchange for which they have been allowed to keep their oral but never written or taught, ethnolinguistic "sensitivities". It requires a very sustained effort for the few "multiculturalist of Greece, which include even some government ministers, to dispel this ugly image of Greek "national" policy that can be summarized in a choice between assimilation or discrimination".

Yet despite that many Aromanians nowadays identify themselves as Greeks, to this day, a small segment of the native Vlach inhabitants of Greece still identify themselves as a separate ethnic group than the Greeks. This appears to be the case of the more remote villages of Pindus, where, sheltered somehow from contact with the dominant Greek culture, the older generation of the Vlachs remains faithful to their language and customs. As Dr. Thede Kahl points out in his study "Ethnologica Balkanica ("The Ethnicity of Aromanians after 1990: the Identity of a Minority that Behaves like a Majority")": "There are still pro-Romanian Aromanians in Greece, especially in villages in which strong Romanian communities were once accepted by the Greek authorities, above all in Avdhela, Perivoli, Samarina, Vovusa, Krania, Edessa, Veria and surrounding areas, as well in a few villages in the district of Kastoria and Ioannina. On a whole, they are a minute and dwindling number of Aromanians.." [30].

Thursday, 21 September 2006

Vlachs were the Romanized people of south-eastern Europe. The Vlach people are generally considered to have formed north of the Jireček Line[citation needed], probably from a mix of Roman colonists (from various Roman provinces) and indigenous peoples who were Romanized.

Their occupations were mostly trading, shepherding and craftsmanship, but judging from the variety of ancient vocabulary related to agriculture we can assume that in the Roman period they were mostly farmers. It is not known exactly when the Vlachs who were the ancestors of present day Aromanians broke off from the general body of Vlach people; historians point to a period between the 5th--9th Centuries.

Byzantine period

In 579 AD, two Byzantine chroniclers, Theophanis and Theophylactus, provided accounts of the language of the Armani (Vlachs) [citation needed]. The Slavic-derived exonymVlachoi ("Vlachs") became a substitute for the term Armani when it was first used in 976 AD in a chronicle by a Greek author named Kedrinos. The Byzantine writer Cecaumenos, in his Strategicon of 1066 AD wrote that the Vlachs of Epirus and Thessaly came from north of the Danube and from along the Sava. Moreover, the author states that they were the descendants of the Bessi.

Ottoman period

In the 18th century, as many of the Vlachs became involved in the trade between the Occident and Orient, their main city, Moscopole, became one of the most important and prosperous cities of the Balkans, until it was sacked and pillaged by the Ottomans in 1788.

Modern history

Today, the official position of the Greek government is that the Vlachs are only Greeks speaking a Latin dialect. Some assert that the reason for this official position is because the Greek government does not want to declare the Vlachs as a national minority. However, the Vlachs themselves do not wish to become a national minority in Greece. The willingness of the Vlachs in Greece to maintain their ties with their fellow Greeks has led to the dwindling usage of their distinct dialect. Though their traditions are not infringed upon by the Greek state, the Vlachs are encouraged to return to speaking the language of their supposed ancestors (i.e. Greeks).

The Jirecek line is a theoretical line that goes from the coast of Bulgaria to the coast of Albania, passing through the Rodopes mountains: it is used to limit the areas where was spoken Latin (to the north) from those were was spoken old greek (to the south of the line) during the late Roman Empire.

The placing of the line is based on archaeological findings: most of the inscriptions found to the north of it were written in Latin, while most of the inscriptions found to the south were in Greek.

This line is important in establishing the place where the Romanian and Aromanian people were formed (see Origin of Romanians), since it is considered unlikely that a Latin people formed on the south of it.